


Hello from the other side

by Orlha



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Not Really Character Death, Romance, Skye is Tony Stark's daughter, Skye is the Winter Soldier, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-05-05 16:12:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 17
Words: 11,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5381687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orlha/pseuds/Orlha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winter Soldier is Skye. Bucky lives for the 70 years without his soulmates and Steve still crashes the plane.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> These are all drabbles and are not in order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is unapologetically angst and has aftermath of torture, depression, suicide attempts, ptsd on some chapters. 
> 
> I may or may not put an additional warning on the chapters but if any of the above are triggers or squicks to you, please note that this your warning.

** I: **

Natasha talks about the Winter Soldier. Bucky has never seen the assassin afraid of anything but the Hulk and there is a good reason to fear the Hulk, but the last thing Steve and Bucky had expected coming after two super soldiers was a diminutive woman that barely came up to their shoulders, but all that was thrown out of the window when she ripped the door open with her brute force. Small, petite were all thrown out and replaced with nimble, strong.

He couldn’t be distracted by the brown eyes of the assassin now, no matter how familiar they looked. She was very good and despite of the seventy years of experience that he had, Bucky was forced to fight tooth and nail for a single edge. Her black hair was wound in a braid, swung like a whip, slapping him painfully in the eye several times. He sidestepped her blade, grabbing it with his metal and flipped her, but she had already anticipated it. The Winter Soldier somersaulted, landing lightly on her feet before rushing him. Her feet clipping his jaw as he dodged just in time. Without pause, she jumped onto him and they grappled for a moment before her knees swung both of them onto the ground.

Bucky landed heavily. The gunshot wound on his abdomen snarled angrily, but he pushed it out of his mind, rolling to a fighting stance. With the mask loosen, the Winter Soldier tore it away, chucking it to the ground. Stray hair freed from the braid danced in the wind, her cold brown stared at him but all Bucky could do was stare in undulated horror crackling through him.

The swell of nausea churned in him, close to his mouth. Oh god. It was Skye. Skye was alive. What had they done to her? He choked on his saliva, swallowing the anger.

“Skye?” he said, taking steps back as she stalked towards him. He had to tell Steve, he had to stop her, he had… help her. Oh god. All the years he spent wishing they were alive could have been better spent searching for Skye. He could have saved her!  “Skye? It’s me, Bucky.” They circled each other, Bucky jumping to the right when she leapt to his left. “ _Skye_ , please baby-doll…”

She huffed, jaw clenching as she stilled and tilted her head. “Who the hell is Skye?” Then she was slammed to the ground by Sam.

“Sam! No!” The words barely left his mouth before Natasha shot at her and blew the car right beside her, sending her flying.

Bucky screamed, trying to run to her except Steve held him back. He flailed, trying desperately to push Steve away. “That was Skye,” he sobbed. “The Winter Soldier is Skye!”

“Skye’s... dead, remember? She fell off the train.”

Bucky shook his head. “They _took_ her, Steve. They did _things_ to her.” He sunk to the ground, clasping his hands on his head as the _Shield_ pointed guns at him. There was no way he was wrong about that. He recognized the damn eyes for crying out loud. Bucky might have always been in love with her fiery personality but it was the eyes that was a close second. He loved those expressive eyes when she smiled and laugh.

Now all he could think was those same brown eyes, the cold expressionless eyes staring back at him, how he could have saved her and the unbearable guilt that rolled through his body.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The theme song for this story apparently is: [Sleep baby sleep by Broods](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhQD8e60ja4)

**II:**

He has difficulty sleeping a whole night through since that time he was caught behind the enemy lines. Bucky sometimes dreams that he’s back on that table and they’re injecting him with things. The pain that shoots through him is like a sledgehammer smashing down on him and he finds himself gasping for air.

“Sleep baby sleep. What are you waiting for? The morning’s on its way, you know it’s only just a dream. Sleep baby sleep, I lie next to you. The beauty of this mess is that it brings me closer to you,” Skye sang, running her hands through his hair. Behind her, Steve banded the three of them together, Bucky felt the weight of his arm over his torso and with the comforting press of warmth and Skye’s soft singing, he drifts off to sleep.

He didn’t dream that night and Skye’s singing became a thing that they did when they couldn’t sleep.

“What song is that?” Steve asks eventually. Neither Bucky nor Steve had heard that kind of lullaby. Skye quirks a look at them from her position at the other end of the bed, her legs lies across theirs and she is leaning out of the window, singing that song. Steve is on Bucky’s left, leaning on his shoulder as he draws Skye watching the trees sway in the breeze.

A moment of lull in the middle of the war. It is the small moments that Bucky cherishes. It reminds him that he is still human, still just a man.

“My dad used to sing it to me.” She replies, her eyes taking on a wistful look. Her fingers twists her hair round and round, a telltale sign that she is nervous.

Taking her hand, Bucky kisses her fingers. “You don’t have to talk about him if you don’t want to,” he told her, Steve beside him agrees heartily, already picking up on Skye’s tension.

Skye very seldom spoke of her pa and never about her ma. Bucky wonders if her ma had abandoned them, it was rare but he has heard of it before, usually when the mothers ran away, it was from an abusive soul mate or husband, but if her ma had left her with her pa, who knew what kind of pa he had been.

“We won’t let him hurt you again,” Steve says.

She throws her head back and laughs. “My dad was the greatest. He brought me up by himself and did his best to protect me from the world. And when I was a kid, he couldn’t put me to sleep and he sang that song to me. I fell asleep to him singing.” Skye places her head on Bucky’s shoulder, her eyes are bright with tears. “He hated the song, but he still sang to me every night.”

“You have us now.” Steve pulls her into the middle of both of them and they bracket her. “Sleep baby sleep, what are you waiting for? The morning’s on its way, you know it’s only just a dream.” Steve hums.

“We’ll always be here for you.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

** III: **

Tony once said he would burn the world down for his Blue Skye but he never expected the time that his bluff would be called.

Gone.

Skye Daisy Stark was gone for two weeks. He regretted taunting the Mandarin, he regretted that the last words to his Blue Skye had ended with caustic comments, he regretted her last words to him was ‘I wish you never came back for me’.

Tony clasped his head with his hands, his body was shaking with exhaustion. What was the point of burning the world down when he couldn’t leap through time to rescue his little girl? Across the lab table was Skye’s coworkers, heads cradled in their arms and fast asleep. The two kids that opened the horrible 0-8-4 that sent her back in time. He drew a long breath, refusing to take a drink though he so desperately wanted it. Skye needed him to be sober and brilliant to come home. Tony pulled the vintage picture that he had found in his dad’s archives and stared at it. He had always suspected the woman beside his father was his biological mother, how else could have Skye grown up to look exactly like her?  It was like some damn fate shit drama that he had chanced upon Blue Skye watching.

Well, fuck Fate.

March, 14 1943. He was going to make the fucking machine work and go back to that very date where his Blue Skye had began to appear in the photos and bring her back.

Fuck time consistencies.


	4. Chapter 4

** IV: **

The list of things Tony regrets is a long list. Tony usually does a lot of things he regrets. He regrets the party he had last night, he regrets drinking too much and waking up with the ever-present hangover. He regrets never asking his father if he ever loved him. He regrets never telling Uncle Barnes how much he loves him around until he stopped turning up. He occasionally regrets not heeding Uncle Barnes’ very often good advice. He regrets that asian woman ever leaving his mansion in the morning after and never bother to taking her number down. He regrets never chasing her down, courting her. He regrets not paying attention to the women he fuck.

The list of things Tony doesn’t regret is a very short list. He doesn’t regret making that motherboard at the age of 4. He doesn’t regret graduating from MIT at twelve. He doesn’t regret screwing the whole long list of women whose names he do not remember (although this a debatable thing at times). He doesn’t regret creating Dum-E, he does very much regret introducing the fire extinguisher function to Dum-E. He doesn’t regret bedding the asian woman and by extension, he absolutely doesn’t regret the asian woman (whose identity he cannot find) dumping his baby girl on his steps.

Tony takes one look at her and sees the little perfection in her, the way her tiny fist grips his finger, the way she beams at him and the little dimple on the corner of her lips. Her eyes are blue like his and he sees the sky in her eyes when he carries her for the first time.

He names her Skye, Skye Daisy Stark.

He didn’t like the name Daisy, but the woman that had borne her had requested it to be her name or part of it. Tony has moments where he could be a responsible adult and honour her request, so he does.

\---

After he has Skye, the list of things he regrets grows longer and begins to differ in the type of things that goes on it.

He regrets getting pea mash because it makes his baby girl fart the smelliest farts. He regrets not packing an extra diaper. He regrets tripping on the stack of tools because now Skye is crying. He regrets playing Black Sabbath in the middle of the night at full blast. Babies apparently do not like heavy metal. Tony thought that if he could introduce heavy metal to Skye at a young age, she might like it as well. This is not the most certainly not the case.

In his profound distress to find something that would soothe Skye because she would not sleep to him singing twinkle twinkle little stars, he sings the next thing that pops into his mind.

“Sleep baby sleep. What are you waiting for? The morning’s on its way, you know it’s only just a dream. Sleep baby sleep, I lie next to you. The beauty of this mess is that it brings me closer to you-” her hand grips his goatee with a relentless grip and with a miserable sigh, Tony cuddles Skye close to him on the king-sized bed and eventually falls asleep next to her.

It is only in the morning when he wakes up and he realizes the song strikes a chord in him. He’s a mess and doesn’t need anyone telling him that, but the beauty of it was that it had brought him Skye. Tony looks down at her and she gurgles at him, holding her arms out as though to ask for a hug. A slow feeling creeps over him like he’s been standing in the sun for too long, warm and fantastically indescribable. There is an unfathomable surge in him and Tony finally understands what the movies always talk about.

This is love. And he’ll burn the world down to keep his baby girl safe.


	5. Chapter 5

**V:**

She is fighting Steve on the helicarriers when Bucky comes to help Steve with the last helicarrier. “Skye! It’s me! Steve!” He rolls, blocking a punch with his shield. “I’m not going to fight you Skye.”

Steve flings himself to the right, throwing the chip to him which he catches instinctively. Skye pauses, her head turning to him. She throws a dagger at Bucky as he runs to the main server, her feet already leaping up and across the bridge to cut him off.

“Baby-doll-” Bucky starts. “It’s me, Bucky. Remember?”

Below, Steve pulls himself up with a groan. She swings a punch, Bucky bull-rushes her, knocking her to the ground. He tries to pin her down but Skye vaults and jumps to her feet before they hit the ground. She lunges at him, he sidesteps but her dagger catches him on his human arm, sending jerk of pain through him.

Without even a flinch, she deflects Bucky’s left-handed hooked punch, slamming her palm into his chin. Bucky knows his left-handed punches hurt. He knows exactly how much force his metal arm can exert and he knows he cannot afford to go easy on her when she’s trying to kill him. The best he can do is hope that Steve can get his ass up here so that with the two of them, the chance of either of them permanently killing each other is reduced.

Bucky flips himself across the railings, using his supersoldier strength to jump right next to the server room. Skye tries to sweep Bucky off his feet and he jumps, launching himself at the server. His aim is rough, but he manages to exchange the chip, crushing the original Hydra chip.

She stares at him, confusion lurks in her brown eyes and it hurts Bucky to see almost no recognition in them.

“Baby-doll, Skye. It’s me, Bucky.” He says and nods to Steve who has finally gotten his lazy ass up to the bridge.

“Skye? I”m Steve, remember?” Steve pauses and adds with a cringe, “Steve-O-di-O.”

There is blood down her face and a darkening bruise where Steve had clipped her on her left cheek. Her braid had half-unravelled in their fight, a french braid Bucky unconsciously notes. Skye had always liked french braids and he and Steve had gotten good at plaiting them. “Your favourite colour is sea-blue, you love hamburgers.” Bucky stares at her, praying for some kind of recognition.

“You’re our soulmate,” Steve says.

But there is none.

She leaps at Steve with a flying kick who has anticipated that and takes it in the face. He staggers back, catching her and cushioning her fall as the helicarrier jerks and sends them sprawling back onto the glass floor.

“I’m not going to hit you, Skye- You’re our soulmate-” Steve tells her through the bloodied nose. Rage fills her face.

“You were my mission!” She punches him again and again. The helicarrier lurches again, dropping rapidly in altitude from the other helicarrier’s shooting. The metal bridges breaks off, crashing into Skye and pinning her to the ground.

“Skye!” Bucky yells, flips himself over the railings and struggles to push the bridge off her.

Her body is so still. So still that it scares him. It reminds him of that summer of 1935 when Steve stopped coughing and sneezing and his body was so still that Bucky counted between each breath.

“Come on baby-doll-” He gasps. Bucky can hear his gears whirring and struggling to produce enough force to lift the beam off her, it shifts but it is not enough. “Skye-” How would he survive if he was to lose her again? Find her only to lose her. He can’t. He won’t.

His arms are shaking from exhaustion, sweat pools down his chest. Bucky feels the helicarriers falling faster and he bites back the rising sob.

“Sam?” He calls out.

“Yes sir,” Sam Wilson replies instantly. “You need to get out. Hill can fly a-”

“Can’t leave Skye behind.” Steve replies and eyes him. He kneels beside her, his fingers pressed against her neck. “She’s still alive.”

Relief floods through Bucky. “I’ll pull her out when you lift,” he says and Bucky nods. Grunting, Bucky forces his arms to lift the beam one more time and Steve drags her out so fast, carefully cradling her and whispering her name.

“We need to go, there should be a plane or something.” Bucky glances at the only way out. The metal stairs is completely wrecked, the only other way out was through the windows now. The metal carrier was still dropping.

“Sam? We are going to launch ourselves into the lake-”

A sudden gurgle gasp catches his attention and he turn to Steve. Please not let it be Skye dying, he prays. It’s not Skye dying, but it’s Skye grabbing Steve by the throat. Steve is turning into a shade of grey that Bucky never knew it was possible for any human to.

“Skye!” He yanks Steve away. Steve staggers a few steps, his arms reaching out to Bucky. He turns, trying to grab Steve upright but another explosion erupts, jerking the helicarrier and throwing Steve right at the hole where the beam had smashed through. In horror, Bucky jumps forward, his fingers missing Steve’s and a sudden weight on his legs stops him sailing out of the hole as well. Skye had grabbed him.

“S-kye?” His blue eyes scans her face for something. There is a look on her face, her hands were shaking when she brought them up to stare at them. “Baby-doll?” He cups her face. His flesh arm protests the motion but he ignores it.

Her eyes hunts his for something. Her lips are trembling. “I killed Steve-”

The helicarrier shudders again and more portions of the glass windows are falling apart. There is a shuddering in the metal. Bucky bands his arm around her waists and throws them into the lake, arranging them so that he protects her. Skye fights him, her fingers trying to pry his metal arm away but he isn’t letting go. He made a mistake of letting her go once, he won’t repeat it again.

The impact is harder than Bucky imagined it would be. Had he been on a normal mission, it would have been nothing to him. His bones are stronger and sturdier than an average human’s. However it’s been a long day, he’s gotten his ass beaten by the girl that’s still struggling in his arm, he’s taken several good kicks and punches in the head too and Bucky’s fairly certain he has a concussion. He should be dead if he was a normal human.

He’s not.

So the water slams into his collarbone like a sledgehammer and the jag of agony across his flesh arm reminds him that he had taken a deep cut there, but he’s alive. His vision flickers as he struggles for a breath, his metal arm weighing him down. He doesn’t have the strength to swim up with the arm. His throat bunches and forces his mouth open, choking him on more water.

Is this how he’s going to die? Perhaps death might not be too bad. If Skye had really killed Steve, Bucky doesn’t know how he was going to act around her. Dying here would mean he doesn’t have to agonize over that. Natasha would take care of her. She would know how to help Skye. His mind was fluttering now then a hand grips him on the shoulder. It holds on tight, propelling him upwards and he breaks into the surface with a gasp and spluttering.

“Skye?” He feels her hand on his cheek. “Don’t go-” Bucky tries to catch her. His body is tired and he weeps for just another bit of strength. “Skye-” his hand flops uselessly to his side, the figure on the bank hesitates.

“I’m with you to the end of the line.” With the last bit of energy, he croaks before succumbing to exhaustion swallowing him up.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**VI:**

The man came from the hallway and Steve shielded them before getting flown back. Pulling Skye behind him, Bucky flew into the wall as the man shot the bolt of blue at them again. He lay there groaning, trying to command feeling into his body to do something but the pain had knocked him silly for a brief instant, his body limp and his mind in a giddy stupor as he watched Skye pick the shield up and attempted to throw at the man. She missed, stumbling back as the train jerked.

“Bucky! Steve!” She screamed.

Bucky leapt. His gloved hands reaching her fingers just in time as she fell out of the train. His body was still tingling with whatever was in that blue bolt and he found himself unable to pull her up.

“S-teve-” he called out between gritted teeth. “Can’t-”

He could see her slipping despite him trying to hold onto her with every fibre of his being. Her brown eyes staring at him horrified, her small hands desperately trying to get a better grip.

“Hold on baby-doll!” He tried to pull himself by using his ankles. Behind him, Steve was still fighting the man, rolling about trying to get a clear shot of the soldier. A jag of agony spiked through his left thigh as a stray bolt shot him. Bucky gasped.

His fingers loosening momentarily, Skye falling from his grip. Her horrified brown eyes catching his blue eyes. “Skye!” He leapt forward but it was too late. His mind was screaming as he watched her figure shrink down into the ravine.

Bucky’s throat bunched and clenched, trying to force for air that he couldn’t seem to take in. He was slipping off the train, in his grief and the lingering numbness from the two shots, Bucky couldn’t find it in himself to pull himself up. A warm arm banded around his waist, dragging back from the hole and holding in his embrace. “I failed her-” Bucky said hoarsely. “I couldn’t- I should have held her tighter-”

“I should have seen the man. Knocked him out before he could have hit the side of the train.” Steve whispered, clenching Bucky’s shoulders almost painfully except all Bucky felt was this hollowness in him. His baby-doll’s eyes staring at him with tears. Her hands gripping his.

Bucky stared at his hands. What was his hands for if he couldn’t protect his soulmates? He clawed at them. There was a hint of a sob beginning to leak into each breath. Steve pressed his forehead against his.

“We have to finish this for Skye,” Steve told him.

“For Skye.”


	7. Chapter 7

**VII:**

The sun above is shining so brightly above. Funerals should have rain but it wouldn’t rain, not today. Steve is holding so tightly onto his arm that Bucky can barely feel his fingers, but that’s all right, because there’s a gaping hole in him that feels like nothing can fill it. He’s lucky to still have Steve, Bucky doesn’t know how he would have been if he had to bury her alone. There is a bitter taste at the back of his throat.

Guilt.

That’s what guilt tastes like.

Guilt.

That he’s failed to protect his lover, that he’s failed to keep her safe. Steve should be blaming him but he doesn’t and Bucky doesn’t understand why. They should fly back to the mountain and search for her body to bury and not bury an empty coffin. The idea of her body decomposing out in the open or animals eating her body makes him feel ill.

They should but when he and Steve attempted to steal a plane, they were pinned down by half of the Howling Commandos. He understood that fuel was hard to come by in the war, but still.

“Sleep baby sleep-” Steve starts as he tosses a handful of dirt onto her coffin.

“What are you waiting for-” Bucky pitches in with his gruff voice.

They don’t cry as they watch the hole being filled. Men don’t cry. They don’t talk about the hollowness in their chest.

Bucky should have known the punk would have done that. It is not another month later when they get caught in another life and death situation while trying to recover the weapon of mass destruction from Hydra and Steve knocks him out and throws him out of the plane in the middle of the fucking ocean with a bloody transmitter. He doesn’t know if he wants to strangle Steve for trying to ‘save’ him by putting him into another situation where he almost died from exposure or by taking the plane down and killing himself for it. The only thing Bucky knows is that he wishes he could strangle Steve now.

Steve saved Bucky so that he could live on alone and Bucky can’t imagine living alone, he never has. He has always imagined life after war with a small house near a forest for Skye to roam, gardening with Steve, they would have a dog or two and maybe children when Skye was ready. When Skye died, Bucky imagined the house with the dogs with Steve.

And now he has nothing.

Bucky doesn’t say anything when they bury Steve’s empty coffin. He doesn’t feel anything except the numbness that blocks everything out. It doesn’t feel real. Steve isn’t dead yet. His marks are still black. Steve is somewhere out there waiting to be rescued.

Bucky waits for a month and then another. The war ends and Bucky is still waiting for Steve to come back to tell him that he had him on the ropes, to tell him that he would always be there for him. But he never does.

It’s another year before Bucky returns to the graves. In his absence, someone had planted daisies on his soulmates’ graves and they’re blooming in the spring. Bucky lies down between the graves, staring into the bright blue sky that is empty of a single cloud. They shouldn’t be here. Not buried. He closes his eyes and he can almost imagine the last memory of the three of them together.

Skye sitting by the window, watching the trees sway in the breeze and humming. Her legs are wound between his and Steve. Steve is leaning on him, drawing and he is reading a book.

“Sleep baby sleep. What are you waiting for? The morning’s on its way, you know it’s only just a dream. Sleep baby sleep, I lie next to you-” he chokes on the song as a sob finds its way into his voice.

He doesn’t know how long he lies there, he doesn’t feel the chill as much as he should now that the serum that the Hydra had been injecting into him has been fully activated but he thinks it’s morning when Howard finds him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: If you’re wondering which song they’re singing... it’d be this... https://youtu.be/eoobV4T9JXU


	8. Chapter 8

**VIII:**

“You can’t just come in here,” Tony told the duo sharply the moment the lab doors opened. He resented their intrusion and he didn’t care if they were his Blue Skye’s soulmates, the whole soulmate thing could go fuck themselves.

“Tony-” Bucky begun tiredly.

“No. You can’t. Jarvis, show them out.”

“Tony! Now you listen here-” Bucky’s words die in his throat at the shuffling of the blankets in the corner of the lab. The three of them fall silent as the blanket shifts to reveal a still sleeping Skye. Wordlessly, Tony stalked towards the corner and gently tucked the blanket in before pressing a soft kiss and shifting back to the two men.

“Why isn’t she in her own room?” Steve demanded quietly.

“She can’t sleep. I think it’s the silence there.”

In the lab, Dum-E moves back and forward with the fire extinguisher, U is still cleaning up the fragments of the failed test. There is sound and movement, almost rhythmic and Tony wonders if that’s what helps her sleep, he wishes that it is his very presence.

—–

Bucky finds her lying in the corner of the Tony’s lab again, watching them with keen brown eyes - eyes with fear lurking just beneath the surface. A little inside him dies every time he sees how her fingers twitches at loud noises, he knows she’s unconsciously reaching for her weapons, weapons that she no longer carries. She flinches when he crouches by her but apart from that, she doesn’t react. Her head leans into his cold metal hand as he runs his hand through her hair.

“Baby-doll, why aren’t you lying on the pullout couch your dad got for you specifically?” he asks softly.

Her eyes that were watching Tony are glazed and dilated, there were no further cues to the turmoil inside her but Bucky had been watching her for the last six months, he recognizes the tiniest tension running through her jaw to stop the micro trembling in her lips.

“It’s okay,” he tells her. “You don’t have to answer.”

And they lapse into silence, watching Tony chase Dum-E around for spraying the fire extinguisher at him.

“Forget,” she says so long after Bucky had asked the question that he had almost forgotten that he had asked a question.

He looks down at her, pausing in his motions and she leans into him. “Forget?”

Skye whispers so quietly that were it not for his super soldier serum, he might not have caught it. “Where I am. Forget. Don’t want- go back.”

Bucky blinks back the hot feeling in his eyes. “I’ll never let them take you again.” He presses his fingers against his eyelids. Oh God, there was nothing he could ever do to make up for letting Hydra take her but they’ll have to kill him before he’ll let them lay a hand on her ever again. “Never again,” he reiterates. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Trigger warning: #suicide attempt**

**IX:**

“Bucky! Are you some fucking idiot?” Howard tackles him with some much force that Bucky never guessed the small inventor had in him, his grip on his gun loosens and clatters on the ground. “Are you seriously trying to kill yourself?”

He’s lived twenty years more without his soulmates but the realization that he isn’t aging means he would outlive everyone else he knows.

He can’t do it.

Already he’s lost Dum Dum and Jacques, how much more must he lose before he’s allowed to rest? Bucky takes a shuddering breath, running his palm down his sweaty face. Howard wretches his face up to his and Bucky realizes, Howard’s so old now. He has white hair in his brown hair, crow’s feet bracketing his eyes and lines etched in his face. He’s going to lose Howard too, Peggy, Jimmy, Maria.

“I can’t Howard- I can’t watch you all die and me live on.” He pushes Howard aside, hands grasping for the gun.

Howard intercepted him, dumping himself onto Bucky’s chest. “Look at your marks, James Barnes.” He pulls down Bucky’s shirt to reveal Steve’s words on the inner arm. “They’re still black.”

“That doesn’t mean a damn thing Howard.” He tries to reclaim his arm but Howard’s grip holds true.

“It means they’re alive. Skye and Steve are still alive Buck. Don’t give up on them.”

Howard’s next words are lost in the cacophony of Bucky’s hysterical laughter. “It doesn’t mean a damn shit. They’re gone. Not all marks fade. Didn’t you read Doctor Frank’s study on it? Marks only fade if there is another soulmate. Mine didn’t. No one is waiting for me. That’s it, Howard.”

“Buck.” Bucky pulls himself up, and Howard tumbles off ungainly and leaps for the gun before Bucky could get to it. “Listen to me Bucky. I’ll find him for you. I’ll find Steve for you. He’s got the same serum as you. A better version. If anyone could live being frozen, it’d be Steve. Don’t give up your soulmates yet.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These are all drabbles and are not in order. Therefore there roman numerals only serve to differentiate each drabble and no other purpose.

**X:**

Steve finds him in the gym punching out the sandbags in the middle of the night.

“Steve- I could have saved her. Found her, rescued her.” Bucky ripped his wraps off his hands and sunk onto the bench. “Seventy years. I waited you two for seventy years thinking you two were dead.”

“Bucky. All of us thought she was dead. There was no logical way that she could have survived it.”

“But she did!” Bucky doesn’t look up from the ground. Had she waited for them? He’s spent all damn years fighting Hydra and all the stupid wars, he’s seen shit. Hell, he’s seen how Hydra experiments on their subjects, he’s seen Stryker’s experiments, things that will haunt him to this day. He can’t imagine how much she’s been put through, she didn’t even recognize him, recognize her name. Seventy years and she looks exactly that day she fell off the train. Him and Steve had the supersoldier serum and while he had not consented to it, Steve had.

Her speed wasn’t faster, her strength wasn’t stronger but what would Bucky know? He hadn’t exactly tried to fight her. And to be entirely honest, Bucky doesn’t know if he hopes that it was the serum or the experiments that kept her young and youthful. Neither were a good choice but if Bucky  _really had_  to pick one, he would have prayed desperately that it was the serum, at least that had a light at the end of the tunnel.

“We’ll get her back,” Steve says and threads his fingers through his. He doesn’t accuse of Bucky for giving up on them, he doesn’t accuse of Bucky for not searching for either of them. Bucky doesn’t deserve him, he doesn’t deserve to have soulmates.

“She didn’t even recognise her name, Steve.” The woman they’ll rescue from Hydra wouldn’t be Skye anymore. Between the both of them, Steve has always been the idealistic, naive one that Bucky has strived to protect him from the world. Bucky has no allusion that regardless if they manage to bring her home to them, the only thing that was coming back was the shell of the once fiery, snarky dame.


	11. Chapter 11

**XI:**

Tony didn’t react when Uncle Barnes - _Bucky_ tells him that Skye is his soulmate when he sees Skye’s young adult photos, he didn’t react when _Bucky_ tells him that he was _his_ fault, not Tony’s that caused his father’s negligence towards Tony. He isn’t stupid. He most certainly can put two and two together, especially after the dimwits who accidentally activated the 084. Yes, Skye might have liked that, but they were the ones who started this whole time loop - paradox, shit.

When Thor finally comes down back from Asgard, after the whole dark elves shithole which Tony frankly could care less, he tells - _demands_ \- Thor to activate it, do something with it. Thor looks at it, really looks at it and says it’s neither Asgardian nor anything he has come across and the only two people who would have real knowledge about it is dead.

And for the first time since Loki happened in New York, Tony wishes that damn god was still alive.

But that fact that Thor doesn’t even know what it is, the revelation comes as surprise because Tony knows for a fact Thor is at least two thousand years old, he _knows_ Thor spent half of his life so far wandering across realms. If it’s not Asgardian or anything he has seen before, then really what was it?

It’s six months, maybe eight months before Shieldra happens. Tony was in his lab still trying to activate the damn 084 that he refuses to let anyone go near it. His Iron Legion stays near it to prevent anyone from attempt to pry it away. So when Jarvis literally pries him away from the lab to watch the news, Tony watches it in horror. His heart stops and there is a grinding sound from the back of his throat. He’d be damned if he didn’t recognize the face. The wrench in his hand drops to the ground in a clatter and he stands there watching the image over and over again before Pepper pulls him into her arms and presses her face into his neck. His shirt becomes wet from her tears and he doesn’t even realize he’s crying until Pepper wipes his tears away with her thumbs.

“Oh Tony-” she murmurs.

There really isn’t any words Tony could say to express the hole in his chest. That for all his genius intellect and Bruce’s, who watches from the corner of the lab and looking quite green, they had failed to retrieve his baby girl.

“We still can retrieve her-” he says, trying to push Pepper away. If he activates it, goes back to the point of time before she becomes… _that_ , he still can save her.

“Tony-” Pepper starts, gently pulling his arms back.

“We still can save her-” He pushes her away more frantically. “We have calculations-”

“Tony-” She says more insistently.

He doesn’t want to give up. Giving up means resigning his Blue Skye to… _that_ and Tony won’t do that.

“Tony.” Bruce stills Tony’s hands.

“Bruce we still can-”

“Come on Tony, we’ve been working on this for eight months. We haven’t even scratched the surface even with Thor’s books and scholars.”

Tony lets out a scream of rage and throws everything to the ground. Hands cupping his head, he leans against the table, trying to suck breath into his burning lungs. “Who did that to her?”

“Hydra, sir.” A map appears across the table with several points. “I’ve tracked through the net and found several points to begin with. That would hurt them the hardest.” If Tony didn’t know better, he would have thought that Jarvis might have expressed a desire for vengeance.

“Good. Let the others know.” He pulls himself up and inclines his head to Bruce.

“I’m in.” That’s all Tony needs from Bruce. He’ll burn every last bit of Hydra down that his father missed because no one touches his daughter and gets away with it.

And when he’s done, they’ll be begging for mercy, for death, but Tony won’t give that to them. Death is far too good for them.

“Jarvis, call in a favour from the X-men. We have some burning to do.”

“Yes sir.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. No, this has not been abandoned...

**XII:**

Tony finds his baby girl in the last place he expects her to be in - a hydra base. He barely recognizes her when he crashes into the hydra base and she turns around, raising the rifle at him. Her brown eyes are hard, lined with lines and eye bags and even as he raises his arms up and flips his faceplate, her face showed no recognition of him.

“Blue Skye,” he says though it is less of a statement and more of a question.

“Who are you?” Her voice is deep, hoarse like she hadn’t spoken for ages or she’s screamed her voice out.

Tony wonders what they did to her. All the Hydra bases he had burnt down hasn’t managed to give him the information he wanted. He knows the knowledge of what they did to her would follow him forever but he also knows that if he ever wants to get his daughter back, he would have to know exactly what he’s fighting with. “I’m your dad. Your best friend. We did everything together, don’t you remember the Iron Man? We worked on it together.” He holds his arms up so still that he never knew he was capable of. He’s not scared of Skye shooting him, he’s not scared of her beating him up. He’s scared that if he spooks her, she’ll run and he will never see her again and that scares him more than the possibility of death.

Her eyes flicker to his suit before snapping up back to his face, her face is so expressionless that it almost hurts. Tony wants to rage and strangle whoever who did this to her, who stripped off everything that Skye had been known for. Her wits, her snark, her chatter that is almost so endless that Pepper sometimes just rubs her temples and tells that she can’t deal with two Starks. “We even painted a lightning blue one for you because you love blue,” he continues, mustering all his willpower to not rush into her and hold her tight. “We even have air codes. Uncle Rhod is War Machine, I’m Iron man and yours was Bubblegum…”

Tony fights back a sigh. It is too much for even to hope for her to bicker about her air code. They have might jokingly suggested Bubblegum, but it was never that, they just loved teasing her.

“We even have matching tattoos! Let me remove my suit and show you.”

She doesn't move not even so much as a twitch, so Tony just disengages the armour. Perhaps it is Jarvis that had changed the setting of the suit's disengagement speed, because the suit peels with almost excruciatingly slow speed. He steps out, all too aware of the twitch in her jaw with every movement of his.

“I'm turning around,” he tells her and turns his back to her, fingers inching the shirt up. There was a monolithic tattoo inked in black on top the wings of a raven, a tattoo that they designed together. Tony knows the meaning of the words without any reference, they spent days poring over every written word. “Do you know what it means?” he says over his shoulder. “We need neither shepherd nor guide for it is us that builds the road. Fire on our wings, we will blaze through obstacles without faltering.”

Not a single look of recognition in her eyes.

The tattoo had been one of the biggest thing in their lives. Skye fought to get a tattoo then fought with him on _what_ to get. Even Rhodey and Pepper had one; similar but slightly different. Skye had proclaimed after the four of them had gotten it that it should be a Stark tradition and any other Stark siblings that came forward later should get one as well.

Was the therapist correct? That with what they did to her, it'd next to impossible to get her anything remotely close to his baby girl? No more snark, no more hilarious laughing or prank wars. He isn't sure if he wants that anymore. Maybe if she stopped looking like a beaten dog and a genuine smile. That went without a doubt that she’d be safely in the tower. He could settle for those.

Skye clutches her head, her face paling more than what Tony ever thought it was humanly possible.

“Blue Skye?”

“That's not my name. I am the Winter Soldier.” The words tear from her lips and he felt it was like ripping duct tape from his heart.

“Your name is Skye. Skye Daisy Stark. You were born in-”

She groaned, knees buckling briefly before she righted herself.  “Winter Sol-”

“Skye-” Tony turns around and takes a step forward before stopping as she raises the gun at him.

‘ _Sir. There are hostiles incoming. Shall I deploy the iron legion?’_ Jarvis interrupts over the in-ear comms.

“Yes, yes,” he mutters. “Listen baby girl we have hostiles incoming. Jarvis- you remember Jarvis? Jarvis activated the Iron Legion. You remember the Iron Legion right? We coded it together.”

“Hostiles-” She freezes, her eyes catches his. The same slant of eyes that he watched growing up but instead they are filled emotions that Tony isn’t prepared to see in them.

“Skye?” He takes a step towards her and this time she doesn’t pull the gun back into his face. Slowly, he pulls her close to him and she buries her head in the crook of his neck.

“Papa?”

The relief that fills him is more than Tony can express, he bites on his lip and just holds her close, murmuring words of comfort, trusting Jarvis and the Iron Legion to keep them safe.

“You’re safe now. We can go home now,” he rubs her head, telling her softly.

“Can’t-” Her breath stutters and speeds up. Skye pushes away from him, clenching her head. “Not safe. Not with me. Monster.”

“No!” he catches her wrist and holds it tight. “I’m not letting you go again, if you’re not coming back home with me then I’ll come with you. If you want to burn Hydra bases down, then you’re damn sure I’m going to be right beside you. Please never think you’re a monster.”

She motions at the papers and whispers as her expression seems to change, “need to remove the trigger words-” Her face falls back into the same blank expression he had seen on her and she raises her chin at him, pulling herself to attention. “Mission objective incomplete,” she tells him in a hard voice. “Awaiting punishment.”

 _Punishment._ The words drips ice to his core, paralyzing him. His daughter stands before him but she is still a stranger; still a stranger until he can remove the trigger words.

“No punishment,” Tony forces himself to say. They are bitter and he wants to punch something. “We are going to find more bases. And burn them all down.”

“Yes sir.”

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suck at french so ~~I used a google translate but we all know how that's probably going to turn out.~~ Sybellia has wonderfully helped with the translation. :) Translation is at the end notes or you can hover your mouse on the french words.

**XIII:**

It clawed at his throat. It smelt cloying, swamping his senses off everything else. He was drowning or wished he was. Wished that he could be rid of everything. Bucky gripped at his shoulder, gasping, ignoring the sharp words and hands that tried to pry his hand from shoulder

“Barnes stop it.” The smaller and calloused hand clung onto his. “ _Stop it._ ”

A sharp smack on his left cheek broke him out of the panic daze he had woken up to. He was in a room, a hospital room. What had happened?

The last thing he remembered was that the mission had gone wrong. Eight of his men had died and then -

“Oh God. Jacques.” Bucky tried to pull himself up and off the bed only to realize his left arm wasn’t cooperating at all. He looked down and found nothing but a stump. A bandaged stump. “No no no no.”

He couldn't breathe, staring dumbstruck at it. His lungs were screaming for air but no matter how many breaths he took, it never seemed enough. He wasn't supposed to lose his arm, he still had to fight. He didn't have anything left but to fight. Oh God, if he couldn't even fight and couldn't age then what was he supposed to do with his life now?

“Barnes, come on. Take a breath. Follow me.” Howard pulled him to his chest and took a long, deep breath.

He took a strangled breath, finally filling his burning lungs with the much needed air, but Bucky could still smell it. The smell of blood and death that would follow him to the end of the world. His men had died, his best friend - after Steve - had died. Their blood were all on his. If he hadn’t been too headstrong, too persistent; if he hadn’t pushed to destroying every damn Hydra base, pushed to destroy that base before they could get more info, Jacques would still be alive.

Bucky took another breath that felt more like a stab of knives. “I killed Jacques.”

“Dernier’s fine,” Peggy assured him, gently placing a hand on his shoulder.

“He’s okay?”

Her shoulders drooped slightly. Rubbing her nose bridge, Peggy replied, “he’s as good as he gets. He won’t get to walk… but he wouldn’t be alive had you not carried him out.”

That was not the kind of life he would have wished on Jacques. Jacques would have preferred dying in a firefight, dying with his guts out, now he had doomed Jacques to a lifelong disability. Doomed never to walk, to run, to fight again. How was he going to have get Jacques to forgive him? Bucky pulled away to run a tired hand across his face only to realise that his left arm was gone.

What kind of sniper was he going to be if he couldn’t even reload and shoot in one simultaneous movement?

“Non, pas d'apitoiement sur toi-même! ,” 1 the voice on his right said sardonically.

He couldn’t see the owner of the voice, but he knew it all the same. “Jacques. You’re okay.”

"La vie est mieux que la mort. Même si tu m'y avais laissé, je ne crois pas que j'aurais été mort. J'aurais été peut-être une de leurs nouvelles expériences scientifiques.” 2

A frisson of fear ran through Bucky as he remembered being on their lab tables.

“La vie est mieux que la mort,” Jacques repeated. 3

Or experimented on, Bucky added mentally.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation:
> 
> 1) Non, pas d'apitoiement sur toi-même! - **Don’t go wallowing in your self-pity**  
>  2 La vie est mieux que la mort. Même si tu m'y avais laissé, je ne crois pas que j'aurais été mort. J'aurais été peut-être une de leurs nouvelles expériences scientifiques. - **Alive is better than dead. Though even if you had left me there, I don't think I would have been dead either. I might have ended up as one of their new science experiments.**  
>  3) La vie est mieux que la mort. - **Alive is better than dead**


	14. Chapter 14

**XIV:**

Bucky watches himself launch himself at Skye just as the pistol fires. He watches the bullet explode from the pistol in a slow motion as he struggles to reach there in time.

How had she been driven to this point?

Skye had been getting better. She had started to remember more, remember the time during the war. She had started to remember the times they had spent in their tent, cuddled together.

It had taken them one year to get her to sleep on a normal bed in a room though they took turns to sit on a chair nearby. She had been terrified of being left alone and when the nightmares got too bad, they would hold her hand and sing that lullaby.

It had taken them another year to allow them to sleep with her. At night, he and Steve would barrack her with their warmth, chasing most nightmares away. Bucky would always sing their song. For all the years he had survived without his soulmates, he never thought that there would have been a time that the three of them were together again. It wasn’t just her or Steve getting healed from sleeping together, it was him. He had been alone for so long that Bucky almost thought that Skye and Steve were hallucinations that his mind had created.

It had taken them another year to hear her laugh quietly at their shenanigans. The first time had surprised them so much that Tony had almost fallen off his chair. The lines that he had been familiar with during the war was all back, the crinkle of eyes, the dimple. Bucky held her close, Steve curling his arm around him and Tony. Bucky hadn’t cried for a long time, almost forty years in fact, but that moment, he was not ashamed to say that he wept with tears of joy.

Everything had been looking good so how had they ended up here?

“Skye!” Tony yells, his armor enveloping him as he struggles to grab her or the bullet.

A shield flies out knocking her aside. The bullet grazes the side of her head and she falls to the ground limply. Bucky is cradling her, holding the wound down. He barely has the time to yell for a medic when Helen is there beside him.

“She’ll be okay,” Helen tells them. Bucky knows it’s a lie. He’s seen many wounds but this- this isn’t one that would be _okay._ Helen searches their faces, shaking her head. “She’ll be okay,” she repeats and adds on in a fainter voice, “the serum will heal it.”

“We should have been careful,” Tony says into the silence as he trails behind the gurney. “She was starting to remember. She remembered me missing her recital the other day for crying out loud.” Pointing to the bruise on the bottom of his jaw, he grumps, “she was so mad when she remembered it.”

“Least it was just a bruise.”

“Well yea.” Tony shrugs. “We were bestest of friends.” They arrive at the room that had been prepared for Skye and they watch Helen order her assistants about as they plug Skye up. It is many minutes later before he breaks the tense silence. “What do you think she remembered?”

“She killed Howard,” Steve replied hollowly. Tony sinks into the chair, hands gripping his head. “She remembered killing Howard,” Steve says again, this time less of an answer but more of a horrifying truth.

“Was she-” Bucky cannot bear to ask it, but he has to. He has to know what they were going up against. “-close to him?” He hadn’t played a big part of Tony’s life until Howard passed and for all his tries, he could not remember if Howard had passed before she was born.

“Perhaps it was a good thing that he... _died..._ before she was born.” Tony palms his face. “I always thought he died because he was too dead drunk and drove his car on at a crazy speed… I didn’t… didn’t…” he gazes at his daughter in the mess of tubing taking a deep breath that sounded almost painful. “I- I-” he turns to Bucky with wide, frantic eyes, leaping off his chair and out of the room before either of them could get a word in. There wasn’t anything that Bucky could offer to make things better. All he could do was hope that everything would be better.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a Stucky. Well It is a WinterCaptainQuake story. So there’s bound to be a Stucky eventually.

 

**XV:**

Bucky wakes in the middle of the night, he feels Steve’s arms banded around his waist, his legs curled around his own and it feels like it’s almost a dream. Seventy years of living by himself, it seemed almost impossible that his soulmates had been returned to him, even his other soulmate is out there in the world by herself.

It’s one in the morning but the fear of waking up to a world without his soulmates feels so overwhelming that it seems to suffocate him. Steve and Skye died in the war. He knew that happened, yet he feels Steve’s soft breaths against his neck. His body shudders as Bucky tries to pull his breath under control. Fear that Steve that’s spooning him is a hallucination, fear that he’ll wake up to that empty cabin in the middle of woods.

“Bucky?” Steve’s quiet murmur tickles his ear. Steve’s warm hand shifting up his chest as he shifts to peer at Bucky in the dim light. “Bucky?” He repeats but Bucky can’t find the air to respond. There is no air to breathe, let alone speak. He looks at Steve’s blue eyes that are luminous in the stray street light filtering through their windows.

He’s here. Steve’s not a dream, not a hallucination. He’s really here.

Steve cups his chin, hand sliding up to stroke Bucky’s cheekbones with his thumb. There’s something in Steve’s eyes, like a knowing look that he knows what Bucky is thinking. He’s not surprised if that’s the case. The punk’s always been preceptive.

“I’m here Buck,” is all he says and he takes Bucky’s hand to palm his face. “I’m here.” Nose sliding down his as he presses his soft lips against Bucky’s chapped ones. Slow and calm, it isn’t Steve but Bucky knows it’s all he needs now. The reaffirmation that _this_ is not some dream.

“I’m sorry,” he tells Steve when Steve releases his lips, gazing at him from between Steve’s elbows. His arm holding onto Steve’s waist. They haven’t been in this position before without having sex but there’s first times for everything. “-For not believing you were alive, for not searching for you.” His jaw clenches under the weight of the guilt that threatens to drown him. “For not searching for her,” he adds in a voice almost too quiet for Steve to pick up.

Steve leans his forehead against his, placing another lingering kiss. Bucky can taste the salt of Steve’s tears or even his own in the kiss. Steve doesn’t reply for the longest time, just holding him tightly.

“It’s okay, you wouldn’t have known,” Steve replies. “If-” His voice breaks off and Bucky hears him take a tremulous gasp before continuing. “-I was you, I might ended up the same way.”

Steve wouldn’t have. He would have persisted in searching for them, driving himself past his limits to make sure he brings a body back, dead or alive.

“ _Don’t_ Bucky.” Steve presses his head against his neck. “Peggy told me how you refused to sleep and eat while searching for Skye and me. Don’t tell me you _couldn’t_ try harder. She told me how it took you decades before you gave up. You tried your best. It’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s but Hydra.”

Bucky shakes his head, scoffing, “I gave up, Steve. I gave up on you guys.”

“Yes, but it took you twenty years to give up. I think twenty years was fair. Fair to give up hope.” Steve turns his head to face him, clashing his lips against his. Steve’s tongue darting out to lick the seam of his mouth and he parted his lips for Steve, hands stroking the back of Steve’s neck as Steve pressed closer to him. Tongues tangled, each fighting for dominance. Steve’s lips were unyielding and as they held onto each other, it felt like it was the only real thing in the tide of passion. “Remember-” Steve pants as they break apart, drawing ragged breaths. “I always love you and while she’s not here to say it,” his thumb circles Bucky’s cheekbones. “I’m sure Skye would say she will always love you too. And that none of it is your fault.”


	16. Chapter 16

**XVI:**

Bucky has been alone for so long that he’s forgotten what it is like to talk to someone again. He has a cabin in the middle of the wilderness, far from the organisation he had helped to found. On his orders, they generally leave him alone and by generally, the last time anyone from Shield visited him was five years ago. 

Tony used to pop by time to time, but ever since his daughter had gone missing, he has not swung by. He doesn’t fault the man. Had it been his own daughter, he would be busy trying to find her too. He knows that Tony would let him know should he require his help.

He’s sitting on a lawn chair, watching the sunset and smoking a cigarette when the quinjet lands in his backyard. The bald man makes his way to him, his body vibrating with so much nervous energy that Bucky’s surprised he’s walking normally. 

“Coulson right?” He says to the bald man.

“Yes sir.” He nods, buttons his suit jacket and seems to consider his words.

“So what can I do for you?” Bucky flicks a bit of cigarette ash off the end of his cigarette and takes a long puff. 

“Those things kill you, you know that right?” Coulson tells him and Bucky raises an eyebrow at his words.

“What do you think I’ve been trying to do all these years?” Coulson coughs a bit and Bucky reluctantly stamps it out. “Well go on. What do you want from me?”

“There's a situation and we need you to come in.”

Bucky chuckles. “Tell Nicky I'm retired.”

“Sir, we all do respect-”

“I have no intention of working for Shield again.” 

“Sir. We found Captain America sir.” Coulson says quickly before Bucky can walk away and pulls himself up from the seat, buttoning his suit. 

“The last time-” Bucky stops in his mid-rant and stares at Phil. Air catches in his lungs as he wheezes out, “who?” 

“Steve Rogers, codename Captain America was found two days ago. It was then a specialist realised that he's still alive.”

“How is that… possible?” he runs a hand through his hair. Steve crashed the plane seventy-two years and three months ago. He’s kept an unconscious count of it, just like how he knows that Skye had fallen off the train seventy-two years and six months ago. 

Bucky doesn’t dare to hope. He’s been without his soulmates for so long that should the tiny hope burn out without turning into anything at all, he wouldn’t know how he’d survive. 

“Our chemical engineers have unanimously agreed that the serum must have protected him. At the moment, we are currently still de-icing him. We believe that in roughly sixteen hours, we will be able to move him to a proper room.” Coulson makes a show of glancing at his watch. “Sir, we would like you to come in for his debriefing.” 

He falls heavily into his lawn chair, hands gripping his temple. “Are you sure?” Bucky looks up at the agent. 

“Sir, we all do respect, but this is Captain America,” he smiles shyly. “If there’s anything I’m sure of, that he’s definitely Captain America and I wouldn’t have come to you if I was anywhere less of one hundred percent certainty.”

Bucky laughs a short chuckle and shakes his head. “You’re a Captain America fan. I remember that.”

“I used to be a Bucky Barnes fan to. Except that he’s kind of my superior and that would have been extremely awkward. Plus I did get my cards signed by Bucky Barnes.”

He stands and pulls the cap that had been sitting by the lawn chair onto his head. “Lead on, Coulson.”


	17. Chapter 17

The journey there felt longer than he had ever experienced. What would Steve be like, was he okay? What would he remember?

The flood of never-ending questions runs through his brain. His leg is pumping up and down like piston as Bucky watches the scenery flash past his window. He pulls his cap off, running hands through his hair before settling it back.

“Is he-” he starts and stops. The words that he wants to ask burn on his tongue like acid but he doesn’t ask, he can’t. Up until now, Bucky had been living by himself, living in the wilderness away from anyone who might show him the passage of time with their aging selves. What if Steve doesn’t make it through the de-icing? A part of him scoffs at even at the thought, but the possibility is real, the files that Coulson has provided state it as much. Nick has not bothered to hide the bare truth from him. He knows that Bucky appreciates the cruel truth much more than the omission of truth to protect him. Knowing that Steve might not make it out in one piece, that he might not be complete, that his body might be in one piece but his mind might not return, haunts Bucky.

Coulson sits opposite him, politely staring out of the window. He doesn’t offer the platitudes of empty comfort, it’s not in his habit to do so and neither is it in Bucky’s to seek them. Bucky runs a hand down his stubble, pulling the cap off and staring blankly at it. He looks up and catches Coulson watching him with a bland smile.

“We’re here,” he tells Bucky.

The building they had stopped outside is a non-descript apartment building. Light brown paint covering the walls, nothing too outstanding that would have drawn the passerby's attention. Nick was waiting for him in the lobby. Had it been another time, _a regular summons,_ Bucky might have jokingly accused Nick of loving theatrics and recommended he join a drama club. But it wasn’t, and the light-hearted bantering was noticeably missing in the silence of the lobby.

“Where is he?” Bucky asks without preamble, not that Nick would have been expecting one. Nick turns and walks up the stairs, expecting Bucky to follow. The structure of the building is old, so old that it reminds him of the apartment buildings that Steve and him used to live in. The hallway is exactly like the stairs, old, furnished like the 1940s until they turn into a room that is clearly the surveillance room based on the equipment in it. Steve is in the other room, in a 1940s-style hospital room. Bucky might have lived for a long time, but he would never forget what hospitals used to look like, not when he used to live more in the hospital than they did in their apartment. “What the fuck is this?” Bucky demands, gripping Nick by the collar.

“It’s to help him gently ease into the century. A lot of things have changed since the 1940s, sir.” He is unperturbed by Bucky’s outburst as though he has expected it, he probably has, in fact. The art of reading people was, after all, handed down to Nick by none other than him.

“Have you turned stupid since the last time you saw me?” Bucky drops Nick and pushes past him. Steve would not take the deception kindly at all. Perhaps if it had been another person, the idea of _gently easing_ him into the modern century _might_ have been a good one. They don’t know Steve like he does and if there’s anything Steve hates more, it would be being lied to in spite of the good intentions.

Bucky gets there just in time, Steve knocking the woman away, bursting into the hallway like fire on his heels. “Buck?” Steve murmurs, his name scarcely making a stir in the air.

“Your ma would have your hide if she saw the way you just treated that dame,” Bucky replies and nods at the agent dressed in the nurse’s clothes. Flushing, Steve turns to the woman and helps her up. “I won’t deny that it was a stupid ass idea,” Bucky says loudly, eyeing the hidden camera. He takes Steve’s hand and steers him down the stairs.

“You can’t just leave. He still needs to be debriefed.” Nick folds his arms at the bottom of the stairwell.

“I tell you what he needs. He needs to go home. I waited seventy goddamn years for him to come back and your _debriefing_ can wait another week.”

“Seventy years?” Steve repeats with an incredulous look.

“Yes, punk, you’re seventy years late for the date you promised me.”

Chuckling hollowly, Steve shakes his head. “Damn hell of a long wait to make up. You still want me?”

Bucky jerks Steve forward, slanting his lips over Steve’s, firmly mouthing his lips, unyielding and demanding even when Steve twitches, moaning into his mouth, heat rushing through them as Bucky pulls Steve in tight. “Always,” he says huskily, pressing a kiss on his throat before stepping away, dropping his arm around Steve’s waist and raises an eyebrow at Nick.

Nick clears his throat. “One week, sir.”

“I’m pretty sure I could debrief him in my own time.”

“You’re retired.”

Bucky grins wryly. “Not officially.”

 


End file.
